


On the First Day of Halloween, My Werewolf Gave to Me...

by redhoodedwolf



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Derek is a slut for halloween, Halloween, M/M, There are werewolves, but everything is different, but no kisses sorry, derek is a grad student, like there's still fluff and feelings, pre-slash kind of?, stiles is a junior, two year age difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 09:27:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4914133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhoodedwolf/pseuds/redhoodedwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek’s favorite holiday has always been Halloween.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the First Day of Halloween, My Werewolf Gave to Me...

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me out of nowhere I just had a deep need for halloween!lover Derek Hale

                Derek’s favorite holiday has always been Halloween.

                As a Christmas baby, Derek also loved Christmas, but the winter season was always so crazy and hectic, not only with the duel celebrations, but also accounting for the fact that his whole family would come to visit. So the holiday became less of one and turned instead into a month of family time. 

                Not to say that he didn’t love his family, it was just that they could get to be a lot sometimes. But Halloween/October was the one month before the craziness of Thanksgiving and Christmas and his birthday where he could just enjoy everything that comes with it. Plus, he was born with a built-in costume, so he already had to put in less effort than everyone else to look cool.

                This year was his first away from home for the holiday. During his undergraduate studies, he went to school only an hour away, so he would make the journey back home at least once a week. All holidays played out at home just like usual. But now as a graduate student, he had his own apartment in a city over two thousand miles away from his family.

                The first thing he did, a week before October even started, was shop around for his favorite decorations. He bought window stickers and mini pumpkins and little black tea lights. He bought a candy bowl shaped like a witches’ cauldron, though he didn’t buy any candy yet. As tempted as he had been, he knew (from experience) that he would have eaten it all by the time Halloween night came around. 

                He held himself back from decorating until the 1st. The only thing that got Derek through the day-- through his TA lecture and one other class-- was the reminder of bags of decorations waiting on the couch for him when he got home.

                Derek restrained himself from running back to his apartment, walking swiftly instead, barely stopping to wave at the doorman before jogging towards the stairs. He knew the elevator would have taken far too long.

                Finally, he got to his door and unlocked it, kicking off his shoes at the entrance and dropping his backpack next to them. He headed straight towards the bags of decorations and got to work.

                An hour later when there was a knock at his door, Derek opened it to find a grinning Stiles. “”Loiterers will be hexed”? Gettin’ into the Halloween swing already?” Stiles asked, gesturing to the sign attached to the door.

                Derek blushed and shifted so that he was blocking Stiles’ view of the inside of his apartment with his body. “So what?” he grumbled.

                Stiles’ smirk softened into a fond smile Derek often had directed at him. “Hey, there’s nothing wrong with that. I haven’t had a chance to get decorations yet so,” Stiles shrugged, “my dorm looks pretty blank.”

                Derek’s tensed shoulders relaxed, and he pushed open the door all the way and invited Stiles in. Stiles ducked underneath his arm, impatient to enter as always, and whistled as he got a look at the rest of the apartment. “Wow, Derek. This is amazing.”

                Derek’s blush darkened, and he was glad Stiles’ attention was elsewhere. Elsewhere being on the windows draped with fake spider web that looked rather authentic, and the strings of orange lights that curved up each of the exposed brick pillars in the middle of the living room, and finally the family of fake carved pumpkins set up surrounding the fireplace.

                “You really went all out, ‘eh?” Stiles spoke, turning to face Derek, that sly grin once again on his face. He glanced at the plastic bags near the couch, some still filled with stuff, and added, "And you're not even done, it seems." Derek shoved his shoulder and ignored Stiles' wounded look as he went to go free Binx from the bathroom where he’d coaxed him as soon as he heard the knock on the door. Binx was known for tackling pizza guys, and after one too many incidents, he found it was better to be safe than sorry and paying for it. 

                Binx, unsurprisingly, bolted as soon as the door was open wide enough, and ran right at Stiles, tackling the man onto the couch. Stiles cheered and rewarded Binx with ear scratches and terms of endearment.

                “So are you here to study for midterms or get affection from my dog?” Derek teased as he moved into the kitchen to grab a water for himself and make a quick cup of coffee for Stiles.

                Derek could hear the spike in Stiles’ heartbeat, and when he glanced over, he could see the slight flush on the younger man’s cheeks. “Can’t I do both? That’s right, Binxy, _yes I can_!”

                Derek snorted before grabbing Stiles’ mug (a chipped one with a howling wolf that had magically appeared two weeks after meeting Stiles) and his own water before moving back into the living room.

                Stiles had finally pushed Binx off of him and was reaching into his backpack to retrieve his laptop. He gave Derek that soft smile as he was handed his coffee and took a small sip of it, moaning at the taste. Derek tried his best to not let the sound effect him. 

                Binx settled onto the floor between their legs, a medium sized ball of fluffy black fur, as Derek pulled out the stack of papers he had to grade and Stiles began typing away. “What is the essay today?” Derek questioned.

                “It’s for my Mythological Studies class. We have to take a favorite myth of ours and bring it to life in a modern context.”

                Derek’s breath caught slightly, the same way it did every time Stiles talked about his mythology class, as if Stiles brought it up just to test him, to squeeze information out of him about werewolves to, who knows, burn his family alive or something.

                That was Derek’s worry, actually, when he’d first met Stiles. Derek sometimes assisted the professor he TA-ed for in getting texts from the library, and the one day right at the beginning of the semester  he was grabbing a book, Stiles had wandered up to him from the other side of the aisle and asked, “Hey do you know anything about vampires?”

                Derek entire body had seized up, and he turned to stare at the man, unsure whether or not to tackle him and demand to know what he knows. But before he could even pop a claw or flash his eyes, the man had rambled on, saying, “’Cause, I’m totally lost, dude. I thought this was the mythology section, but all I’m seeing is war left and right, and even though I’ve been at this school for over two years now, I’ve never really explored each section in this huge-ass library, so could you maybe direct me towards where the vampire books are at, if you know anything about them, because that would be spectacular?”

                He phrased everything like a question, which had Derek deciding that this student wasn’t a threat to him. “You’re on the wrong floor,” Derek finally said once the silence had stretched too long. “Mythology is upstairs.” And maybe Derek had done some sleuthing himself to see what documentation the school had on werewolves and see if any of it was accurate. He was surprised to find that some of it actually was.

                Drawing himself out of his flashback, Derek stared down at the essays in front of him wanting even less to grade their menial understandings of World War I and II. “What, uh, what myth did you choose?”

                “I know it’s cliché, but I was thinking Lycan? We haven’t gone into the myths of werewolves as much as I expected, and I’m interested in seeing what I can come up with since I have all of this _knowledge_.” He raised his eyebrows twice in a suggestive manner.

                Derek hesitated before standing and moving over to his book shelf. The one book he’d found in the library that actually held realistic lore on werewolves was surprisingly interesting for Derek, who as a kid never cared about werewolf history. He’d purchased the book on a whim a couple days after finding it and had even annotated the thing a bit. He took it off of the shelf and passed it over to Stiles once he settled himself back onto the couch. 

                Stiles gave him a dubious look but took the book and scanned through the first couple of pages. “You have a book on werewolves?” Stiles asked dubiously. Which, true. Derek had never expressed any interest in mythology once (living it was enough), and as someone looking into teaching History it wasn’t a necessity.

                Derek smirked when he answered, “They’re interesting.”

                Stiles grinned. “Well, yeah they are! I’m just surprised you would research them, is all. I thought you wouldn’t need to know anything you weren’t born with the knowledge of.”

                Now that was cause for alarm. Derek stood up abruptly, creating space between them. A low growl built up in his chest, and Binx whined, submitting to the sound. “What do you mean by that, Stiles?”

                Stiles’ eyes flickered from between Binx and Derek before he asked, quietly as if breaking the news to Derek, “Did you think I didn’t know you were a werewolf?”

                Derek shifted at that, the growl building as he let his wolf come to the surface. Stiles didn’t look appalled, however, but he did look somewhat concerned. “How do you know that?!” Derek demanded.

                “Derek, the first day we met you flashed your eyes at me. It was pretty obvious. Plus, my best friend is an alpha, I know the signs.”

                Alright. So probably not a hunter then, Derek decided. “How was I supposed to know you knew, you never said anything!”

                Stiles flailed his arms, almost knocking over his chilling coffee. “I thought it wasn’t necessary! I assumed you smelled Scott on me and knew I knew about you guys, and that’s why you flashed your eyes at me, yanno, like a sign. And I always avoid you on the full moons now cause that one in August you were grumpy three days before. I switched my deodorant because I could tell it bothered your nose. You’ve opened beers for us without a beer opener!”

                Derek’s shoulders scrunched up at that last one, realizing that maybe he hadn’t been as subtle as he thought. Although, most humans would play it off, because they didn’t know better. Apparently, Stiles did.

                “I... I didn’t...” Derek was at a loss for words, and he sheathed his claws, realizing that there was no reason to look threatening. 

                Stiles took pity on him and patted the couch next to him. Binx took that as his cue to jump up next to Stiles, but Stiles just dragged the dog half into his lap so that Derek could have a space to sit. And sit Derek did, very gently. 

                “This wasn’t how I expected telling you would go,” Derek admitted.

                Stiles grinned, absentmindedly petting Binx. “So you wanted to tell me?”

                Derek couldn’t help but smile a little bit back. “Yeah, eventually, if we stayed friends long enough. It’s a part of me, I don’t like to hide it. There’s more people in the supernatural community than most would assume, so it’s not as difficult now-a-days to befriend someone who understands.” Derek lifted a hand. “You, for instance. Though I didn’t  _know_ you did.” 

                “I should have been more upfront about it, though. I was just so psyched to have met another werewolf, I didn’t want to come on strong, yanno? Scott’s the only one I know, and he was bitten when we were teens. So we’ve just been flying by the seat of our pants for six years. I’m amazed I held out as long as I did, honestly.”

                Derek smirked. “Stiles we met two months ago, it’s not been that long.”

                “Feels like forever,” Stiles muttered, but then quickly added, “In a good way! I like spending time with you.”

                Derek’s cheeks flushed and Stiles cooed, reaching over to pat them. Derek batted his hands away, and Stiles cracked up. 

                Once his laughter died down, Stiles looked over at Derek from the corner of his eye. “So... does this mean I can write my essay about real werewolf stuff, not just stuff Scott and I have been able to guess.”

                Derek scoffed. “I guess so.” Derek pointed to the book. “That’s the only one I found in the library that is all correct, probably written by one of us.”

                “Awesome,” Stiles drawled, grinning wide. “But first,” He set down the book and reached for the bags of decorations resting against the back of the couch. “we have to finish decorating.”

                Stiles had far too much fun arranging the window stickers, speaking in a mock accent like a fancy interior decorator, moving them an inch to the left or right before stepping back and deeming them, “Fabulous, darling.”

                As the sun began to set and the apartment darkened, Derek plugged in the orange string lights and let them brighten the room, much to Stiles’ delight. Stiles turned on The Nightmare Before Christmas and had that playing in the background as Derek made them both dinner in his tiny kitchen. Stiles perched himself up on the counter, legs swinging and kicking Derek every ten seconds. He simply grinned each time Derek glared at him for it.

                They eventually got some work done later after dinner, and Derek told Stiles he could crash on his couch if he wanted to instead of driving back to campus, and Stiles took him up on the offer.

                The room was baked in a soft orange glow and it reflected in Stiles’ eyes in such a way that Derek was tempted to turn on the regular lights just so they weren’t so distracting. When their fingers brushed as they both reached for the TV remote, Stiles’ heart skipped a beat, and in Derek’s moment of breathlessness, he stole the remote with a cheer of victory. Derek let him have it as a fond grin worked its way onto his face. 

                “So Derek,” Stiles asked around a mouthful of pumpkin cookie (so Derek couldn’t resist  _all_  the treats, sue him), “If this is just October 1st, how much do you do every day for the rest of the month until  _actual_ Halloween?”

                Derek swung his arm around the back of the couch, fingers brushing Stiles’ shoulder, as his other hand buried into Binx’s fur, the dog’s head resting in Stiles’ lap. Derek’s eyes flashed their bright blue and Stiles’ breath hitched. “This is only the beginning, Stiles,” Derek promised. 

**Author's Note:**

> There's more of this insanity on my tumblr at redhoodedwolf


End file.
